


Ghosted

by universitykpop



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Angst, Eventual Smut, F/M, Ghost!San, Ghosts, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Reader-Insert, ghost!Choi San
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:35:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28277736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/universitykpop/pseuds/universitykpop
Summary: An apartment close to campus with a lowered price of rent was something you couldn't pass up. But little did you know you would have a roommate who won't leave you alone and breaks things he can't pay for.
Relationships: Choi San/Reader, Choi San/You, Park Seonghwa/Reader, Park Seonghwa/You
Comments: 3
Kudos: 23





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The warning of "Major Character Death" refers to the death of the main character San that happened before the story began!

The listing was odd when you first found it, but how could you pass on such an offer? All the other apartments near campus were much more expensive than this one. One particular unit in this complex is cheaper than the rest, and you have to have it. Being a broke college student, you need to cut corners when possible.

The landlord seems very nice and cares about her tenets. She points out who lives where as she guides you to the apartment. Your potential neighbors sound friendly and respectful; that is quite a selling point for someone who needs peace and quiet.

“We usually don’t show the unit available, but it has been sitting empty and just got deeply cleaned,” the landlord says as she unlocks a door on the second floor.

You smile and follow her inside the apartment. The appliances are a bit outdated, the walls look slightly dingy, and there’s a hint of a musty scent lingering. For the price of rent, you can’t complain. You need an apartment close to campus that isn’t going to be super expensive.

“Now, I have to legally disclose that there has been a death in this unit. That is why rent is lower for this one.”

There’s the catch. But at this point in time, where hasn’t someone died? Who really knows the history of the very ground you stand on?

“I understand if you don’t want it.”

“Oh, no, I still want to live here.” You assure her, and she hesitantly returns a smile.

Oh, how you were a fool. With the money you would save on rent, you should have hired a moving company because that one flight of stairs was hell. That doesn’t even account for your friends being loud and annoying. You constantly had to remind them that the walls weren’t soundproof and the people below probably didn’t appreciate the chaos going on.

With a small box on the toilet, you sort the bathroom essentials, preparing to finally shower. You feel sticky and just want to lay down. For a moment, you debate just sleeping on your couch after you unpack this box… But you’re just tired of feeling gross.

Popping your head through the shower curtain that you just hung up, you find a confusing shower faucet. Nothing indicates hot or cold, so you just turn it hoping for the best. Water stutters out of the bath faucet. Now, how the hell do you get it to come out of the showerhead… 

You lean even further in and spot a switch just above the overflow drain. A freezing spray douses you before you stand straight. Whoever left the showerhead turned that way- A loud thud cuts you off before you can even think of a threat. It’s going to take time to get used to all the old apartment noises.

Clothes hit the floor as you grab the last of your shower items and step into the tub. The water is just the right warmth. Lathering up in soap, you sing to yourself that stupid song that’s been stuck in your head all day. There’s another voice you hear faintly singing along, and you stop. It also stops. An echo, it has to be. You sing another few lines, and it continues. It’s too deep of a voice to be an echo of yours. You stop mid-word. The other voice finishes the word.

Blaming it on tiredness, you finish your shower in silence, but the voice takes over your thoughts. Maybe it was your neighbor who shares the wall of your shower. Unless you have become absolutely delirious, that’s the only logical explanation. That also means your neighbor is a weirdo for duetting with you at two in the morning.

As you finally rest your head on your pillow, you stare at the ceiling. The ceiling fan looks a lot newer than the rest of the apartment, and there’s a pale ring around the base. Your mind doesn’t dwell on it much longer.

Your vision fades, and your unconscious comes alive. There’s a man; you don’t recognize him, but you feel as if you know him. He takes your hand and smiles. His dimples and eye smiles charm you.

The grip on your hand tightens, nails digging into your skin. The man’s smile drops as he begins to fade away. The anguish in his eyes tears your heart apart. Your other hand tries to grab his arm but grabbing him is like grabbing water, useless.

The background falls dark. Panic ensues as you frantically struggle to save him. You’re screaming with little breath, and tears stream down your face. Before all the air leaves your lungs, your alarm forces you back to reality.

Your cheeks are damp, pillow soaked. You breathe heavily to catch your breath and glance down at your painful hand. Crescent shapes line the back of your hand. These unsettling findings must be pushed aside until later. It’s the first day of class, and you don’t want to make a bad first impression by being late.

* * *

You fumble with your keys as a girl passes behind you. She’s on the phone arguing with someone.

“Mom, I told you I wasn’t going to be at my apartment for a few days… No, I wasn’t ignoring you last night! I wasn’t home!”

Glancing over, you see her unlock her door and step inside still talking loudly. Your body feels like it’s on fire as the realization hits. Who the hell was singing? Could someone have broken in? You obviously would have noticed, right? Maybe you didn’t lock the door and some creep came in? But you remember unlocking the door this morning when you left…

The gross feeling in your stomach intensifies as you finally get into your apartment. You stand there quietly, listening for any movement. Nothing pricks your ears. You slowly tiptoe into the kitchen to retrieve a knife and cautiously walk down the hall to your bedroom.

Something is slightly moving, just out of the door frame. Sweat builds up all over, even in places you didn’t know you could sweat. The movement is your bedsheet hanging off the bed and fluttering in the wafts of air from the ceiling fan. Before you can let out a sigh of relief, a loud bang comes from overhead, causing you to drop the knife and run back to the front door.

Something stops you once the hallway ends. A man who is stood at your window peers over at you with a surprised expression and then suddenly disappears. Your jaw is dropped as a scream won’t come out. You grab your phone and purse and sprint out of the apartment without locking it up.

At a safe distance down the hall and hiding behind a large fake plant, you immediately call the complex’s emergency line. With a complex security guard on the way, you watch your door like a hawk through the fake leaves, waiting for the man to come out. It feels like hours have passed when the guard finally arrives with the landlord.

“He’s still in there.” You point to the apartment.

The guard equips his taser before cautiously going inside.

“What did he look like?” Your landlord distracts you.

“He’s about average height, bleached hair, um, dark eyes. I-I didn’t really pay attention to how he looked. I ran as soon as I saw him.”

She looks slightly bewildered and nods as your apartment opens again.

“There’s no one here,” he says.

“That’s impossible. I watched the door the entire time,” you remark in disbelief and slide past him to get inside.

“He could have left out a window,” he tries to conclude.

You hastily check each window in your living room and bedroom. “They’re all locked.”

“Maybe you imagined it? You just moved in and may be exhausted.” Your landlord reasons, but you know what you saw.

“You checked everywhere?” You look to the guard.

“Under the bed, behind the shower curtain, every closet. There was nothing.”

“I’ll document this incident in case something like this happens again,” your landlord says gently, “You should call someone over and rest.”

All you can do is nod. Arguing isn’t going to change their minds. Once they leave, you stare at the place you saw the man. A strange feeling creeps up on you like you somehow know who he is. You peer down at your hand, suddenly remembering something. The nail marks are gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just so y'all know, comments are highly appreciated! Thank you for reading, lovelies<3


	2. Chapter 2

The arguments taking place on your couch have you wishing you hadn’t called your friends over. Honestly, you’d rather have the burglar here because at this point he would be better company. 

There’s more unpacking to be done, and silence would be much appreciated. As you place your kitchen items in cabinets, one of your friends starts yelling, startling you enough to drop a plate. It shatters when it hits the wooden floor.

“Shut up!” You yell over your friends, and they cower into the cushions, “Wooyoung, I have told you multiple times that the walls aren’t soundproof, so bring the volume down several notches before I come over there and permanently shut you up.”

Wooyoung mumbles an apology.

“Do you need help cleaning that up?” Your other friend, Yeosang, asks politely, already walking over and rolling up his sleeves.

“Yeah, just grab that broom and dustpan.” You point to the supplies leaning against a wall behind him.

As you sweep the fragments into the pan, Yeosang becomes distracted by something tucked under the cupboard below the sink. You’re losing what little patience you have with him not pressing the pan down hard enough. Just as you’re about to snap at him, he reaches under the cupboard and produces a small sphere.

“Is this yours?” Yeosang questions, holding it out for you to inspect.

You take it for a better look and roll it between your fingers. It’s definitely not yours, but it’s so beautiful. It seems to be a clear glass marble shattered on the inside with a sliver of purple.

“It’s not mine,” you answer, placing it on the counter and resuming clean up.

“What if it’s from the person who died here?” Yeosang crouches down again with the dustpan.

“The landlord said they deep cleaned this apartment though. They would have taken it, right?”

“Unless they didn’t clean as deeply as they were supposed to. I could have told you they didn’t just from the weird smell in here.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Wooyoung calls from the living room.

“We found the dead person’s marble,” Yeosang answers bluntly.

“Don’t say it like that. It sounds disrespectful.” You scold him while you steady the broom in the corner where the counter meets the wall.

Wooyoung appears with wide eyes. “Don’t touch it. What if it’s haunted? Like their spirit is attached to it or something?”

“Do you think before you speak?” Yeosang retorts as he dumps the pieces of the broken plate in the trash.

“My mother told me not to mess with dead people’s things. You don’t know what they will do if you do.”

“When you die, you die. We don’t have ‘souls;’ we have consciences.”

“Don’t start arguing. You guys are already on my nerves.” You warn.

As they are about to scorn you, something falls behind you. Wooyoung and Yeosang are both frozen with wide eyes and hanging jaws. You whip around to find the broom on the ground. It was definitely in a secure position…

“Guess that’s our cue to leave,” Wooyoung concludes, but you’re not letting them leave you alone.

“You would really leave me by myself after a strange man was in my apartment because something fell?” You ask incredulously.

“I don’t fuck with spirits so that they don’t fuck with me.” Wooyoung reinforces his stance.

Yeosang grills him for being a wimp, starting another argument.

“You two can sleep in my room. I have a lot of blankets and pillows to make a pallet for you to sleep on.” You interrupt them to offer.

Yeosang is the first to assure you that they will stay.

“Speak for yourself. I’m leaving.” Wooyoung pointedly gives Yeosang a wide-eyed look.

“I’m your ride. How are you going to leave? Hmm?”

Once again, an argument ensues, but this time you let them go at each other and head to your room to set up the pallet. It will eventually end with Wooyoung being guilted into staying.

Two cozy blankets are neatly laid out as the makeshift mattress with pillows and two smaller blankets on top. You glance over at your dresser and get an idea to clear off one side. The small, vanilla candle sitting on the dresser is lit, filling the room with a warm light and calming scent.

The loudness in the kitchen has subsided as you reenter. Yeosang is stood with his arms crossed, glaring at Wooyoung. The shorter boy reluctantly speaks up, “I’m sorry I wasn’t considerate of your situation. I’ll stay.”

“Thank you, but you’re still a little shit.” You say before grabbing the marble off of the counter.

“What the hell did I tell you about touching dead people’s stuff?” Wooyoung’s voice pitches as he follows you to your room, but you stop in the doorway. The blankets and pillows for the pallet are on your bed.

“I just laid those out…” You whisper to yourself.

“What’s wrong?” Yeosang pushes past Wooyoung.

“N-Nothing.” Maybe you hadn’t actually laid them out. You have been shaken up all day since you’ve come back from classes, and on top of that, you didn’t get much sleep last night. You must have imagined you made the pallet. Dismissing your confusion, you walk to your dresser and place the marble next to the candle.

“You made a shrine?” Wooyoung vehemently says in disbelief.

“The kitchen counter didn’t feel respectful!” You become defensive.

“Shit, you’re right,” he immediately retracts.

“Both of you are dumb,” Yeosang comments and begins making another pallet.

Laying in your bed, staring at the marble on your dresser, you wonder if your apartment is haunted. You aren’t much of a spiritual person. Reality is stressful enough; an afterlife would prolong the torture. You like to think when you die it will be like falling asleep. Nothing else matters, no stress, no conscience. It’s just an ongoing blackness, a void of nothingness. As these thoughts spiral, your mind descends into that very blackness.

You find yourself at a table with the same man from your dream the night before. The two of you are in a restaurant of some sort, but your surroundings are warm toned and blurry. It sets the mood of the conversation you have fallen in the middle of.

Lost in a daze, the man leans forward and places his hand on yours.

“Y/N.” He captures your attention and smiles gently. You can’t quite make out how he looks, features hazy.

His presence is comfortable, a place you can let down your walls. You know he understands you without saying anything. There’s an intimacy between you. These feelings don’t have an explanation; they just exist. 

“Don’t think so hard about it,” he says.

“What?” You are confused by his words.

His empathetic smile falls, and he begins to dissolve into the background. You try to hold onto his hand on the table, hoping your nails dig into him to keep him in front of you, but your fingers go through him. Your eyes frantically search for help, but the other people who were once bustling around are now gone, leaving you to call out for someone… anyone.

You feel hands grab you and shake your body as you continue to grasp at the man’s hand, screaming in distress. Voices call your name in the distance. It feels like you’re the next to disappear.

Finally opening your eyes, you’re met with a terrified Wooyoung and Yeosang. You sit up, feeling a stinging pain in your arm and wetness on your cheeks again. There are scratch marks running down your forearm, a few spots of bleeding.

“Are you okay?” Yeosang sounds rattled.

“What happened?” You ask, ignoring his question.

“You were screaming in your sleep with your mouth closed. It woke us up, and we saw you dragging your nails down your arm. What the hell were you dreaming about?” He responds with an enthusiastic Wooyoung nodding behind him.

“There’s this guy in my dreams… He keeps fading away, and I can’t save him. I don’t know who he is, but this is the second time I’ve dreamt of him. I can’t really remember what he looks like,” you recollect what you can from your dreams, keeping the feelings you have towards the man to yourself, “What time is it?”

Wooyoung glances down at his phone, “8:19.”

A dream that felt like minutes spanned over several hours…

“I guess I can unpack more before class,” you sigh, “You two don’t have to stay if you don’t want to. I should be fine.”

“Are you sure? You didn’t seem fine just now. But you also freaked us the fuck out, so I’m kind of scared to stay,” Yeosang says.

“I’m getting the hell out of here even if I have to walk. You can stay if you want.” Wooyoung looks at Yeosang who looks to you.

“I’ll be fine,” you assure him.

Yeosang is hesitant to leave you alone, and Wooyoung ultimately has to drag him out. The liveliness of the apartment drops significantly with their departure. 

A cup of coffee brews while you unload the last box of kitchen things. It’s quiet, allowing your thoughts to become louder. You’re tired yet feel on edge. If it wasn’t the first day for today’s classes, you would happily crawl back in bed.

The coffee maker beeps, startling you out of your internal debate to stay home. After pouring some cereal, you walk over to your meager dining table. As you sit down, something catches your attention out of the corner of your eye.

The man you saw yesterday is standing in your kitchen with his back to you. Your immediate response is to throw the coffee mug at him. You watch in horror as the ceramic flies through him and crashes into the counter, coffee splattering everywhere.

A scream catches in your throat when he turns around, making direct eye contact. He looks surprised like your reaction was unexpected. Physically fighting him is clearly not an option, and as he moves closer to you, you stumble out of your chair and fall to the ground, breaking down in tears begging for him not to kill you.

“You can see me?”

Those words are not quite what you assumed he would say.

“Yes, pl-please don’t come any closer,” you plead. He must be a hallucination. There has to be a gas leak somewhere or you’re still dreaming. 

“I won’t hurt you,” he says but stops coming towards you, “I promise.”

“Just take what you want and leave. I won’t tell anyone. I swear.”

“Y/N… I can’t leave this apartment.” He takes a step closer.

“H-How do you know my name? Why can’t you leave?” You ask and try to crawl backward, but your back finds the wall. You’re cornered now.

“Conversations. You don’t see me, but I’m still here.”

Jesus Christ, he’s a squatter. Your body clambers to stand and race to your phone in your bedroom.

“Don’t!” He yells, arm stretched out, and your bedroom door slams in your face.

Shaking hands struggling to turn the knob, but it seems to be locked. This is it. You have officially lost your mind. Leaning your head against the door, you accept your fate… but nothing happens, and you glance back down the hallway. The man is gone. You twist the bedroom doorknob, no longer locked.

Heavy breaths fill the air as your trembling body collapses to the ground. You feel lightheaded and begin to sob. Never before have you felt so terrified for your life. Mind reeling, it can’t fathom what you’ve just seen.

Something in your head tells you it’s okay, but it’s not your own thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just so y'all know, comments are highly appreciated! Thank you for reading, lovelies<3


End file.
